Hocine Abdelhak AZZEDDINE1, Djamel-eddine CHAOUCH1, Mohammed Berka1, Mourad Hebali1,

Ahmed Larbaoui1, Mustapha Tioursi2

University Mustapha Stambouli of Mascara Algeria (1), University of Sciences and Technology of Oran – Mohamed Boudiaf Algeria (2)

doi:10.15199/48.2020.11.25

Fuel cell grid connected system with active power generation

and reactive power compensation features
Abstract. This article presents a control of a three-phase low voltage grid connected fuel cell system which participating in the improvement of the
quality of energy at the connection point by ensuring the reactive energy compensation, the active power control and the harmonic filtering
functionalities. A p-q theory based control has been developed to control the injected fuel cell active power and to allow the system to provide the
reactive energy compensation function. The system is structured around a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system and a three-phase
voltage inverter.

Streszczenie. W artykule przedstawiono sterowanie trójfazową siecią z podłączonym ogniwem paliwowym z kompensacją mocy biernej I redukcją
harmonicznych. Zastosowano ogniwo z protonową membraną wymienna PEM. (Sieć z podłączonym ogniwem paliwowym z kompensacją
mocy biernej I redukcją harmonicznych)

Keywords: fuel cell, grid, active power, reactive power, control.

Słowa kluczowe: ognowo paliwpowe, kompensacja mocy biernej

Introduction an over-sizing of its components. In order to totally or

Nowadays, many of the global primary energy supplies partially relieve the generator and the grid, and to avoid
are provided from fossil sources (oil, coal and natural gas) this over-sizing, the reactive power is locally generated
[1]. Consumption of these fuels lead to greenhouse gas (near the inductive loads) most often by capacitor banks.
emissions and also to increase the atmospheric pollution. In When already installed to provide active power, fuel cell grid
addition, excessive consumption of these non-renewable connected systems can be in addition replace these
resources penalizes future generations. As a solution, the capacitor banks by injecting reactive power to the grid. This
use of renewable energy sources continues to strengthen is possible by controlling the amplitude and the phase of the
and become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. In this injected current.
context, hydrogen is one of the technologies that focus on In this work, proposed control allows the inverter to
development efforts. As an energy carrier, and associated inject active power from the fuel cell, at the same time to
with fuel cell technology, hydrogen can play a leading role exchange reactive power with the grid. This added function
in the energy mix in the future. It has several advantages: it contributes to the improvement of the power factor of the
has the highest gravimetric energy density of all known grid and allows a significant economic gain as there will be
fuels (about 35 kWh /kg), and its combustion, which no need for capacitors.
produces only water, can be considered "clean" [2].
Research efforts advanced in power electronics and System configuration
reduction in fuel cell costs have led to successful transition Several configurations of grid-connected fuel systems
from stand-alone fuel cell systems to grid-connected fuel are encountered in the literature. In this work, the system
cell systems. Different types of fuel cells have been studied shown in Fig. 1 is chosen. It consists of a Ballard Mark V 35
for the integration into the electrical grid [3-5]. The most cells-5kW proton exchange fuel cell system, a DC-DC boost
used are PEMFC and SOFC fuel cells. The integration of converter, an inverter and LCL filters. The LCL filters are
fuel cell systems into the electrical grid has opened up a inserted between the inverter and the grid to minimizing the
wide field of research to identify all the related technical effect of harmonics created by switching process. The DC-
impacts. As in other decentralized generation grid DC boost converter is necessary to increase the voltage at
connected systems, the problem of injected harmonics is the inverter input (at least 400V DC to generate 220V AC),
more encountered in the literature [6-8]. The issue of active and it operates in continues conduction mode.
and reactive power control has also great importance in this
area, so several studies have proposed different control
strategies [9, 10]. A fuel cell generates a high direct current
under a low voltage. This specificity has prompted
researchers to focus on power electronics associated with
their integration to the grid [11-15]. In addition, artificial
intelligence techniques are called upon to play a role in the
improvement of the quality of energy in these systems [15-
18].
In grid connected fuel cell system, the main function of
the inverter is to inject active power to the grid as needed. It
can, in addition and provided that the inverter is oversized,
satisfies part of the grid's demand for reactive power. In
fact, in public grid, several electrical loads such as motors
require both active power (doing useful work) and reactive
power (storing energy in the magnetic field). This reactive
energy is continually exchanged between the load and the
source. Therefore the grid must produce and transport not Fig.1. Proposed fuel cell grid connected system
only active energy but also reactive energy, which results in

124 PRZEGLĄD ELEKTROTECHNICZNY, ISSN 0033-2097, R. 96 NR 11/2020

Fuel cell model The ohmic over-voltage is determined by:
The operating principle of the fuel cell is based on the (5) .
reverse process of electrolysis of water. A redox reaction
reacts hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, water where is the equivalent proton-exchange membrane
and heat (Fig.2) [19]. impedance (Ω) and is the resistance between the
electrodes and the proton-exchange membrane (Ω) usually
considered constant. is calculated as the following
relation:
.
(6)

where is the membrane thickness (cm), A is the cell active

area (cm2), and is the specific membrane resistivity
(Ω.cm), obtained by the following relation:

.
Fig.2. PEM fuel cell principle , . , . , . .
. (7)
At the anode, hydrogen is transformed into H+ ions by , . . , .
releasing electrons according to the reaction:
+ -
H2 → 2H + 2e where is the water content in the membrane between 0
+ -
At the cathode, the H ions combine with the O ions and 23 [22], [23]. may have a value order of 14 under
formed from oxygen to form water according to the reaction: 100% of relative humidity and up to 23 at oversaturated
+ -
O2 + 4H + 4e → H2O conditions.
The overall reaction is therefore: At high current densities, the losses related to the
H2 +1/2O2 → H2O + heat + electricity kinetics of diffusion of gases through the electrodes become
The production of electrons at the anode and their dominant and the voltage drops quickly. This concentration
consumption at the cathode ensures the electrical potential over-voltage is given by the relation:
difference which allows the current flow when the cell is (8) . ln 1
supplied with air and hydrogen and is placed in an electrical
circuit. where B (V) is an empirical coefficient it depends on the
The Nernst potential (the theoretical thermodynamic type of fuel cell and its operation state [21-23], J is the
potential) of a single fuel cell at 25 °C and at 1 atm is of the actual current density of the cell (A/ cm2), and is the
2
order of 1.229 V [19], but the real potential (Er) of the cell maximum current density (A/ cm ).
decreases relative the equilibrium thermodynamic potential Using the actual model, the polarization curve
when the current flows. This deviation from the value of the (current-voltage characteristic) of a Ballard Mark V PEM
Nernst potential is due to irreversible losses called over- fuel cell at standard temperature and pressure conditions
voltages (or voltage drops) which are the activation over- was plotted using MATLAB-SIMULINK software (Fig.3).
voltage Eact, the ohmic over-voltage Eohm, and the Table 1 shows the model parameters values used.
concentration over-voltage Econc [20].
So, the expression of the voltage of a single fuel cell is Table 1. Ballard Mark V Fuel cell simulation parameters [23]
expressed as follows [20] [21]: Parameter Value Parameter Value
343 K -0.948
(1) ECell  E Nernst  Eact  Eohm  Econ 50.6 cm
2
0.0312
178 µm 0.000076
The stack voltage EStack of n cells connected in series is: ∗
, ∗
1 atm -0.000193
(2) EStack  n.ECell 0.016 V 23
2
0.0003 Ω 1.5 A/cm
In the case where liquid water is the product of the
PEMFC, the expression of the Nernst equation arranged
with a numerical calculation is as follows: .
(3)

E 1,229 0,85T . T 298,15
1
4,31. 10 . T. ln P ∗ ln P ∗
2
where T is the absolute operating temperature of the
stack (K), ∗ is the hydrogen partial pressures (atm) and
∗
is the oxygen partial pressures (atm) [20].
Activation over-voltage, predominant at low current
densities, are given in the model proposed by J.C.Amphlet
et al.[20], [21] by the relation: Fig.3. Polarisation curve of a Ballard Mark V PEM Fuel cell stack
. . . . .
Proposed control
where is the functional fuel cell operating electrical
The control is done via two loops: a loop that regulates
current (A). , , , and are empirical coefficients. is
the DC voltage at the inverter input and a loop that controls
the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the interface of the the active power and the reactive power of the grid injected
3
cathode catalyst (mol/ cm ), determined by: current. The DC/DC converter control is shown on Fig.4.
(4) A PI controller regulate the DC/DC output voltage by
. . . minimizing the error between the DC voltage reference
(VDCRef=400 V) and the actual VDC voltage (varying the

PRZEGLĄD ELEKTROTECHNICZNY, ISSN 0033-2097, R. 96 NR 11/2020 125

converter duty cycle). The PI controller tuning (proportional reason, it suffices to impose a zero set point to the injected
constant Kp and integration constant Ki values) is a reactive power (iqRef = 0). In this case, the three-phase
compromise between a fast dynamic response and a output currents of the inverter and the mains voltages are
reduced settling time (Kp=0.08, Ki=200). synchronised (Fig.6).
The injected power control to the grid is mainly by
controlling the inverter (Fig.5). Table 2. Important simulation parameters
Parameter Description
400 V Inverter input DC voltage
220 V Single phase RMS grid voltage
50 Hz Grid frequency
10 kHz PWM switching frequency
L1=3.5 mH, L2= 2 mH, LCL filter design
C=3 µF, Rd=7Ω

Fig.4. DC/DC converter control

Fig.6. Powers, and single phase current / voltage (PF=1)

Fig.5. Inverter control Finally, the proposed control was tested in the case of
abrupt changes of active and reactive power demand of the
The proposed control consists in applying the dq0 grid. Fig.7 shows the actual active power and reactive
transformation for the line phase currents. The dq0 power, and the corresponding three phase currents.
transformation allows transforming a balanced three-phase
system to an equivalent tow-axis representation, thus, it
considerably simplifies the calculations and the control. In
the dq0 rotating reference frame, the active power and the
reactive power at steady state are given respectively by:
3
(9) P  Vd .I d
2
3
(10) Q   Vd .I q
2
where iq is the current quadrature axis component, id is the
the direct axis component current and Vd is the direct axis
component voltage [24].
Therefore the control of the active power is done by
controlling (Id) while the control of the reactive power is
done by controlling (Iq). The advantage of this control is the
fact that the control of the active power is decoupled from
the control of the reactive power. The error between the
actual values and the reference values of Iq and Id currents
are introduced to PI controllers. The PI outputs must
undergo a dq0 reverse transformation in order to have
vector control in the natural three-phase reference frame. Fig.7. Active/reactive power and grid injected current
The obtained three signals are compared with a high
frequency triangular signal to generate the PWM signals. It is clear that the actual power follows the set power
values with good dynamics. The three-phase currents
Simulation results injected into the network have a sinusoidal shape.
Simulations are done using the system parameters In order to evaluate the quality of the power injected into
values shown on the Table 2. the grid, Fig.8 shows the harmonics spectrum of the
The proposed control is firstly tested in the case where injected current. It has been verified that the produced THD
operation at a unit power factor (PF=1) is desired. For this (Total harmonic distortion) is very low.

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University Mustapha Stambouli of Mascara, Algeria E-mail: Configurations, technical challenges and trends, Journal of
[email protected]; dr. Mohammed Berka Faculty of Cleaner Production, 213 (2019), 1353-1370
Science and Technology, University Mustapha Stambouli of [16] Bicer Y., Dincer I., Aydin M., Preparation Maximizing
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Stambouli of Mascara, Algeria E-mail: mourad.hebali@univ- [17] Sakhare A., Davari A., Feliachi A., Fuzzy logic control of fuel
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University of Sciences and Technology of Oran – Mohamed fuzzy control of grid-interfaced solid oxide fuel cell system,
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